Claire-Anne O'Brien

Claire-Anne O'Brien is a textile artist who lives and works in London producing textile furniture, space and product. She specialises in constructed textiles, she investigates construction, form and scale through textiles.  

Originally from co.cork in Ireland, Claire graduated from The Royal college of Art in 2010 with an MA in Constructed Textiles and set up her studio just after. 

 I really like the work of Claire as they are so different and unique. I like the fact that she thinks about the wool she uses to make these pieces, they are made from bespoke British wool, especially made by Laxtons Mill in Leeds, which is one of the oldest surviving spinners in the country. 

This is a project that Claire did called 'British Wool Chair' it was commissioned by Rowan Yarns for British Wool Week Oct. 2010 and it was exhibited in Liberties window.



http://www.claireanneobrien.com/home

Timorous Beasties

For my current project at university I've been looking into insect and in particular bee's. On a recent visit to Liberty of London I came across a cushion with a bee on: 

After seeing these I realised it was a Timorous Beasties piece so I thought I would look more into the work of Timorous Beasties. 

Timorous Beasties was established in Glasgow in 1990 by Alister McCauley and Paul Simmons, who met studying Textiles Design at Glasgow school of art . Today the studio is a diverse operation and has emerged as a multi award winning, internationally acclaimed icon. 

Timorous Beasties’ work embodies a unique diversity of pattern, ranging from design that echoes a golden age of copperplate engraving (a time-honoured classic is the Thistle range; or Merian Palm superwide wallpaper) to example of a distinctly edgy nature, an elegant transgression, a display of chic irreverence. Yet, the studio fully engages a design discourse with textiles history by lending an aesthetic evolution to time-honoured motifs. 

I really like their work as its so different and unique to them. I like their use of pattern as a background then an image on top of that.                                     

I also like that most of their work involves a lot of bright colours and busy patterns as this makes them really different as almost with their work if it clashes it goes.

                                          

http://www.timorousbeasties.com/about

Natural Dyes

Recently I've become really interested in the process of natural dyes and the amazing colours you can get by just normal everything vegetables or flowers in your back garden. 

With the latest project at university I'm trying to look into getting the most sustainable and natural wools and dyes as my main inspiration for this is nature and honey bees. 

So with this in mind I started looking up natural dyes and how they work and what i would need to make some of my own. In doing this i became aware that you could get the nicest colours from things like onion skins.  

With this information fresh in my mind i went to work that night, and as i work at a local supermarket i asked if i could have some of the onion skins that had fallen off into the bottom of the trays, i came home with a bag full of brown onion skins. 

I took them to university with me to our dye room and i got up a recipe i had found online and got working on my dye. 

Here are my onion skins boiling away 

This is the colour my wool came out all ready for the knitting machine  

I then tried some red onion skins and this was the weird result 

It came out an olive green colour which i wasn't expecting but i really love the colour.  

i used a thicker wool for this one and i also did a thicker wool in the brown onion skins again so i could use them for hand knitting. I used Rowan undyed wool.  

 I have then made them back into ball of wool from the dyed hanks. I have then chosen to knit a honey comb pattern in these colours to relate to my inspiration and the subject that I am looking at.

 

I loved the process of making my own natural dyes so I then tried some red cabbage, and i got this amazing light grey/purple colour and it was again a totally unexpected colour as you expect it to come out bright purple. This is the one thing i love about natural dyes as you never know what colour things as going to come out and if you use different mordants they can come out different colours. 

 Next thing I tried was blueberries 

 

And this is how it came out pretty much the same as the red cabbage but a slightly darker grey.

Lousie Walker

Louise Walker 

On a recent visit to London I went to the Spring Knit and stitch show, it was my first time to the show and I really enjoyed my visit. 

My favourite stall has to be Louise Walker's 'Faux Taxidermy Knits'. Louise is a London based designer. She creates Knitting patterns and dyes yarns all Brixton. 

 

Louise Walker's love affair with knitted creatures started after a commission by Boden for their A/W 2013 press day at Somerset House. Since then she has been commissioned to make trophy heads for lots of homes, including some celebrities. Louise has also worked for some magazines including Crafty and Knit. Today she is currently working with dermores as an independent designer.

I really like how creative her how is and how quirky it is. I brought her book whilst I was at the show and it has lots of patterns so you can create her knits yourself. They are all easy to follow patterns and they all give you a list of the things that you will need to create them.  

http://www.sincerelylouise.co.uk

Dana Barnes

Dana Barnes 

Dana Barnes is a new artist I've been looking into recently to find inspiration within the work I'm interested in. 

Dana Barnes creates giant knotted pieces of work. She is inspired by nature which is what my main source of inspiration is, so I can really relate to her work. 

 I really like how different her work is and how individual it is.

I love how her work looks within interiors as it really is the centre piece of any room as her pieces are so different and eye catching, yet they are so simple but just on a giant scale which makes them so beautiful.

Jane Crisp

Jane Crisp 

Recently while look through Mollie Makes magazine I found an artist called Jane Crisp and from researching into her work i officially have another new favourite artist. 

I fell in love with her work as its something quite similar to what i love to make, she is another lover of giant yarn and giant knitting which is something I'm really interested in. 

The first piece of hers that I saw was the knitted chair, and it is something i would really like to have a go at doing myself. I really love how you can see the real structure of the knitting and the chair.

Freddie Robins

Freddie Robins 

Freddie Robins is a knitted textiles artist who studied at Middlesex university. She uses her knitting to explore contemporary issues of domestic, gender and the human condition, but also the preconceptions surrounding knitting as a craft its self.  

This piece above is probably my favourite piece from Freddie. Its a self portrait based on the well recognised image of Saint Sebastian being martyred. But instead of arrows pricing her skin she has replaced them with knitting needles.  With this piece she is trying to make you think about the stereotypical image that craft, especially knitting has with being a passive, benign activity, and also who you can no longer fly with knitting needles and there are no longer on display in charity shops and they are seen as almost a weapon.  

I really like this piece as it makes you think about how people now look at craft and what the preconceptions of crafts are as a whole.

http://www.freddierobins.com